US veteran and poet Bruce Weigl sees his return to Vietnam this time
as a way of helping to relieve his bad memories of the war.
Talking about his visit to the central province of Quang Tri 42
years after leaving Vietnam in 1968, Weigl said the country’s
revival, the unimaginable changes and images of crowded streets and
peaceful fields on this visit have helped him to come to terms with his
haunting memories of a war-torn land.
He also said
that he would come to this land again, as if he was coming back to his
home. He said he first returned to Vietnam in 1985 and since then
had returned 12 times, but had never visited the Quang Tri battlefield
as his Vietnam war memoirs were still torturing him.
According to Weigl, he had even been to Hue several times, only 30km
from Quang Tri territory, but dared not continue to the places where he
saw his friends dying 40 years ago, since these memories were still too
raw. He said he was afraid of seeing the hills, the fields and the
rivers in the former battlefield.
After the war, Weigl
started searching documents in archives, to learn about the Vietnamese
soldiers, and he discovered these so-called “foes” loved and wrote
poetry. From 1979, Weigl began writing poetry as a way of redemption
from his war obsessions and traumas.
From old
notebooks of soldiers on the other side of the frontline, he and his
friends selected and translated poems into English to help Americans see
another side of the past war. Later, his own poetry would turn him into
a big name in US literature.
Weigl used to be a
professor in famous universities such as Arkansas , Old Dominion and
Penn State , and now is an honorary professor in arts and human
culture of the Lorain Country Community College in Ohio city.
He made many contributions to healing relations
between Vietnam and the US after the war. As with many other
soldiers fighting in the Vietnam war, he was affected by Agent Orange
and now is suffering from cancer.
During his visit to
Vietnam, Weigl will take part in a poetry night called ‘Returning to my
Vietnamese home’ and on Dec. 16 launch his poetical memoir, “After the
Rain Stopped Pounding”, which has been translated into Vietnamese by
Nguyen Phan Que Mai and published by the Youth Publishing House./.
